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Furniture Plans – Step by Step from Inspiration to Reality – Part 2 of 8

Concept -

Now is time for the creative part!!

Once you’ve been inspired, the next step is to use whatever you are comfortable with to sketch out what you think you would like. Don’t worry if they are all out of proportion, or don’t look quite right. This step is to really understand where you’re heading and get “that feeling” you got when you went through the inspiration stage. Even if you can’t quite get it down on paper, that’s ok, there’s no rush!

I do almost all of my conceptual work in TurboCAD, and usually skip the whole paper sketch part. This software is certainly not the end-all of what’s out there, but its pretty inexpensive and does exactly what I want it to do – we’ll get to that in a little bit. For Chair 00004, I had in mind that I wanted something with really simple lines, and arms. That was about it. I also gave some thought to what it was going to be used for – an outside chair for the front porch or for the outdoor patio. Nothing fancy, and no upholstery.

So, now go out and draw a ton of stuff! Use different angles to view what you’re trying to get. MOST OF ALL – DON’T WORRY!!! These sketches are for you and only you need to know what you’re trying to get. Its kinda like when a 5 year old gives you a piece of paper with scribbles and asks if you can see the cow…

What you’re trying to get out of this preps you for the next step – theory. The next step ties your concept to something that should be functional.

Furniture Plans – Step by Step from Inspiration to Reality – Part 1 of 8

This multiple series of how-to articles will explain how I create furniture plans for Plan Canvas and also (hopefully!!) give some answers to those who are curious.
Here’s an overview of the articles that I see fitting in:

1. Inspiration – This is the research part
2. Concept – This is the creative part
3. Theory – This is where all things need to work to make it real
4. Prototype – Make sure it works if real – all in CAD
5. Practicality – Make sure you use as little material as possible
6. Rough Draft – Putting it on paper
7. Publish – Have the Teacher work your check
8. Build and/or Sell! – This one could be a whole separate set of articles, but I’ll outline the steps on my store

So starting at the top!!

INSPIRATION

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed the clean lines of mid-century modern furniture. I grew up with a very good friend of mine in Iowa who lived in a very large ultra-mod house, complete with an Eames chair in the living room. The house itself was incredible, but what really got me is how the house had a style both in and out. Since I knew that the amount of money to spend just building houses was something out of my reach, I decided to start drawing up furniture that had the same feel as Mark’s house. I also drew cars, but we won’t go into my day job…

So nowadays, I tend to review lots of various modern furniture sites, along with a vast array of books. I’ve added links to these sites and some of these books on the blogroll on the right. Don’t focus on anything, just find something that you like, something that strikes a chord. Bookmark, or somehow save up these various areas of inspiration. If you keep into the area of building furniture plans, this becomes seriously helpful for your future projects.

For the purpose of this series of articles, we’re going to look through the development of Plan Canvas’s Chair 00004. This is one of the better selling furniture plans on the site, and has had some really nice reviews 1, 2 (thank you!). The inspiration for the chair was pretty simple – I needed some chairs for our front porch. I had some cheap plastic chairs that we’d junk-picked and they work great, but look horrible. I wanted to have something that looked nice, but didn’t cost an arm and a leg. At the end of this, you’ll see that I ended up designing a chair that can be made from half a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood.

So take your time and browse through some of the links, look on Ebay, search Craigslist, go to your local “antique” shop (Detroit has lots of these) and pick out some pieces that really hit you!!!

Cutting Straight with a Circular Saw or Jig Saw

Building furniture plans, or doing any woodworking, means at some point you need to cut straight edges. My rule for choosing the right tool to cut with depends on the length and type of cut. If the cut is to be a straight cut for more than a few inches on an edge, the circular saw is the only way to go. It cuts far faster than a jigsaw, and doesn’t change angle very quick as you’re pushing it along. If the cut is curved or only a few inches, I’d go for the jigsaw because it is easy to maneuver and gives a clean edge. I would mention table saws here, but they are quite expensive for the occasional woodworker.

This post deals with cutting straight edges using a circular saw. In my experience, I would much rather cut really long pieces (like over 3 feet) with a circular saw rather than a table saw – its much easier to handle a small circular saw rather than a huge piece of board! The choice of buying a circular saw is outside the scope of this post, but many resources are available online.

The easiest way to cut straight is to clamp on a straight edge of some sort. I like to use extruded aluminum from some door framing (I found some in my basement), or use the machined edge of a piece of plywood, or even a piece of dimensioned lumber like a 2×4. The key of using anything is how straight the piece is, and where it is clamped to the workpiece. How straight the piece is depends on what you’re using. Where you clamp it is what the rest of this post will discuss.

For either a circular saw or a jigsaw, the critical measurement is the distance between the edge of the base plate and the end of the cut from the blade (see fig 1 and 2 below). This is the distance you need to clamp the inside edge of your straight guide. The fastest and most accurate way to measure this distance is to take a piece of scrap wood and cut it with the circular saw, and measuring where the edge of the base plate is to the edge of the cut. Take your time here.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Now using the same piece of scrap wood, try clamping on your guide, measured off a line you want to cut to. Take a cut and see how accurate you were. That’s it!

There are quite a few different guides on the market, but this way is far cheaper and great if you’re just getting into woodworking, or don’t have much coin. The main point to remember is that clamping wrongly will cost you in extra materials in the end.

Inspiration – Mid-century modern books

The 1950’s and 1960’s modern furniture books (in this case from Digmodern) are great pieces of inspiration for your own modern furniture. Lots of what you find are the sleek and simple lines that were used in so much of the furniture during that time. The really cool part is that since they are simple in design, they are generally simple to build.

The key to designing any furniture is to have form follow function – or funktion If a piece really grabs you, try to find who designed it or built it. In many cases, the original designer also produced other items with the same feel. These are great leads to follow, even if they are the greats like Wright or Eames.

One of my favorite things about the picture below is how all of the pieces work together – the shelves, the couches, the light fixture – it all works. Now just imagine it in color! Now imagine it so that it fits in this century!! Way cool!!!

Mid-century modern books architecture and design Contemporary Furniture Making for Everybody